MAY 2014 Newsletter Volume 27, No
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MAY 2014 Newsletter Volume 27, No. 2 IN THIS ISSUE Society Letter from the President . 2 SMB Treasurer Update - Renée Fister . 3 2014 JSMB/SMB Annual Meeting Announcement . 4 Recent Conference Reports Advances in Mathematical Biology, Colombia . 5 Systems Approaches in Immunology, Santa Fe, NM . 6 Reports from The 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Baltimore, MD . 8 Translating Cancer Data and Models to Clinical Practice, UCLA, California . 9 SMB at the USA Science & Engineering Festival, Thinking Like Ants!, Washington DC . 11 Computational Neuroscience Workshop, McGill University, Montréal . 13 Perspectives "New and Less New Opportunities For Mathematical Biology as Applied To Biological and Clinical Medicine" - Jean Clairambault . 14 SMB Education Highlights New Guidelines for Programs in Mathematical Biology - Elsa Schaefer . .16 People Mathematical Biology Journey - Trachette L. Jackson . 18 James D. Murray Talks About His Benter Prize . 20 Philip Maini Interviews James D. Murray . 21 Research Interview - Nick Cogan . 22 The Future of Mathematical Biology - Russ Rockne . .24 Positions Available ..................................................................................26 Institute Events .....................................................................................27 https://sites.google.com/site/jsmbsmbjointmeeting2014osaka/home SMB Newsletter, MAY 2014, Volume 27, No 2 Page 1 MAY 2014 Letter from the President Dear SMB members, When I was out plucking ruefully at the dandelions in our lawn the other day, I was accosted by my lawyer neighbor who was doing the same, although rather more forcefully. "What do you teach, anyway?" he asked, and I said "math and biology", which elicited the response we have all become so used to, "Those seem like two completely unrelated subjects." He seemed the wrong per- son to get into an argument with, so I attacked another dan- delion. Perhaps the Society will have succeeded when we don’t hear some such response every time we confess to what we do. As I look through this newsletter and think about the goals of the So- ciety, it is clear that neighbors are just one of the many audiences we have a chance to educate. Schoolchil- dren, college students, academic colleagues, administrators, and medical researchers need to feel the gath- ering wave of successful education, research, and application that mark not so much an oncoming flood of mathematical biology as the filling of a waterway. This mathematical waterway is a conduit of scientific communication. Historically, cities were founded almost invariably near waterways less for water supply and security than for efficient transportation. Even today, floating a ship, perhaps from California to Japan, takes far less energy than any other mode of trans- port because the buoyancy of the water does most of the work of fighting gravity and friction. And that is precisely the promise of mathematical biology. When the good ship math biology is sailing the intellectual oceans with cargo ranging from cancer delivery strategies and models of ant behavior to ways to combat biofilm-associated diseases, our neighbors of all sorts will know that mathematics belongs in biology be- cause it often provides the most efficient way to solve problems. The upcoming joint meeting in Osaka with the Japanese Society for Mathematical Biology makes con- nections across geographic rather than conceptual distance. Even in the era of globalization, the rich tradi- tions of Japanese, Chinese and Korean science are something many of us in Europe and the Americas know only through published work and some lucky encounters. I am looking forward to diving more deeply into that world and expanding my network of friends, colleagues and collaborators. Sincerely, Fred Adler SMB Newsletter, MAY 2014, Volume 27, No 2 Page 2 MAY 2014 SMB Treasurer Update Dear SMB members, It is hard to believe that another fiscal year for SMB has come and gone. Our year runs from April 1 through March 31. Many thanks to Torcom Chor- bajian for his multiple years of service to the society and for graciously doing the taxes for 2013! He has been instrumental in keeping the society moving in the financial aspects. As of November 2012, we began a transition period in which I began to learn the ropes, if you will. With Torcom and Heiko Ender- ling’s membership support, we migrated to an online membership system with a connection to PayPal. Heiko has done a fabulous job of keeping in contact with Springer regarding the membership so that the Bulletin of Mathemat- ical Biology can be properly distributed to you, either in print or electroni- cally. The Travel and World Outreach Committees have worked to provide opportunities for people to host workshops throughout this past year. There have been events in Buenos Aires, Columbia, and Israel, to name a few. An entire programmatic concept related to Models and Methods in Ecology, Epidemiology, and Health created opportunities for workshops throughout this last year. For each sponsored event, doc- umentation is required. A standardized SMB travel form has been developed. Each participant completes the fillable form provided by the workshop organizer or via my email, kfi[email protected]. After the workshop organizer has determined the allocation of the funds and the forms with the receipts have been received, then disbursement has been sent. Please note that if a wire transfer is requested that there is a cost associated with that which is subtracted from the reimbursement funds. For each workshop, the paperwork for all is requested to be returned within a month of the event, if at all possible. A second item related to documentation is an article that is to be sent to the SMB Newsletter concerning the workshop. If you have not done so, please send your articles to Amina Eladdadi at [email protected]. Some bookkeeping items that have occurred this past year are the use of QuickBooks for all the income and expenses of the society. We are a solid group financially to date. We are working on mechanisms to enhance the growth of our funds. There is a task force that is looking at the cost of membership for the dif- ferent categories and the benefit for our members. We have also had our Articles of Incorporation updated, and they are now current and in good standing through 2016 as required by the government. As you are planning for our joint annual meeting hosted by the Japanese Society for Mathematical Biol- ogy in Osaka, Japan from July 28-August 1, remember to see if you are eligible for the Landahl-Busenberg awards, http://www.smb.org/meetings/landahl.shtml. Your support of SMB has given opportunities to researchers to continue their studies in different cul- tures and interdisciplinary aspects. Thanks for your continued support! Renée Fister, SMB Treasurer SMB Newsletter, MAY 2014, Volume 27, No 2 Page 3 MAY 2014 The 2014 JSMB/SMB Annual Meeting Announcement Dear SMB members, The joint annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Mathematical Bi- ology (JSMB) and the Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB) will take place at Osaka International Conference Center in Osaka, Japan, from July 28-August 1, 2014. The joint meetings of the SMB and the JSMB were held first at Hilo, Hawaii in 2001, and second at San Jose, Cali- fornia in 2007. This third joint meeting is the first one held in Japan, and co-sponsored by the Chinese Society for Mathematical Biology and the Korean Society for Mathematical Biology. The themes of the confer- ence will include all areas of mathematical biology at the interface of mathematics and its application to biology. Professor Masayasu Mimura (Meiji University, Tokyo), President of the JSMB, will chair the confer- ence. The meeting will feature nine plenary lectures, by Dr. Nanako Shigesada (2013 Akira Okubo Prize Awardee, Professor Emeritus of Nara Women’s University, Japan), Carson C. Chow (NIH, USA), Dr. Iain D. Couzin (Princeton University, USA), Dr. Steve A. Frank (Univ. California at Irvine, USA), Dr. Hawoong Jeong (KAIST, Korea), Dr. Laura Miller (University of North Carolina, USA), Dr. Akiko Satake (Hokkaido University, Japan), Dr. Tatsuo Shibata (Center for Developmental Biology, RIKEN Kobe, Japan), and Dr. Yanni Xiao (Xi’an Jiaotong University, China) and two Lee Segel prize lectures. Seventy one minisymposia (including double sessions) were proposed in the areas of Medicine, Virus, Cancer, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Pattern Formation, Biological Movement, Network, Epidemi- ology, Ecology, Evolution, and Mathematics from USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Australia, Saudi Arabia, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. The number of minisymposia exceeded the total of numbers of minisymposia and contributed sessions combined at the Tempe meeting. In expectation of numerous presentations at contributed oral and poster sessions, we will be able to welcome many partici- pants from all over the world. Summer in Osaka is very hot and humid, so although the temperature itself is much lower than that at Tempe, casual wear made of fabric that breathes well is recommended. The local organizing committee (https://sites.google.com/site/jsmbsmbjointmeeting2014osaka/organizing-committee) will make every effort to appreciate excellent presentations and productive discussion in a comfortable atmosphere. Please visit https://sites.google.com/site/jsmbsmbjointmeeting2014osaka/home for details. Minisymposia: https://sites.google.com/site/jsmbsmbjointmeeting2014osaka/minisymposia . Toshiyuki Namba, On behalf of the Organizing